Ewan Spence has been watching the E65's launch today and remarks on similarities to last year's N80. With a certain core feature set now well established, is the E65 all about marketing?
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Nokia E65 - Is It All In The Marketing?
I can't say I agree that the announcement of the E65 can be compared with the N80. There are some very different features on both devices to the point where the only real similarity is perhaps the slider. The N80 has a 352x416 resolution screen, not VGA, a 3.2 mp camera, not 2.0, and the E65 has 4 dedicated "business" keys which I still haven't figured out yet. The impact of these two devices is vastly different too. I don't think there's going to be too many riots over the E65, whereas the N80 was revolutionary to s60 at launch.
I do agree that this seems to be the start of a set of standard features for s60 all across the board, but at the same time, a standard kinda brings everything down too. The E90 is the only device that doesn't fit this new standard and it seems to be the only phone people are getting really excited about. The addition of a camera to the E61 is nice, a basic GPS s60 is pretty convenient, a sliding business phone completes the form factor variations for the E-series, and TV on what's basically a dumbed-down N73 is interesting, but the real WOW factor is in the E90, and also the only device that seems to be worth writing home about, (shy of its price tag). While a set of standards is nice, I think it'd be nice to it in a more developed form. All these new devices (shy of the E90) seem to have a specific advantage, but also seem to be lacking in other departments, if their advantage isn't disappointing as is.
I agree with you, and is because of that the others (not E90) are more marketing then something real new. They are only little tweaks and little changes to the things already out. Only E90 is a new frontier.